Monday 19 November 2018
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You can tell by their tone of voice and the body language that BBC presenters are loving Brexit just now. With the negotiations effectively over (except for the last hurrah as Mrs May goes to Brussels), they can dispense with any pretence of following the detail and devote their energies to lapping up the Westminster soap opera.

With the (largely) London-based media doing the same thing, this drags coverage down to a new level of tedium as we have to suffer in equal measure the ignorance and self-importance of sundry politicians and their hangers-on.

Most of those whom we saw during the negotiation phase had little enough to say worth listening to, but now the babble is more or less devoted entirely to politics, there input is of even less interest. I actually found myself switching off a BBC report on Brexit, mid-flow. I could no longer stand the prattle.

As Nick Cohen observes, "political correspondents, who couldn't find a big picture in a multiplex, buzz around Westminster hyperventilating about the number of letters sent to the 1922 Committee, and the replacement of minister X with junior minister Y, as if it mattered in the slightest".

Much of the trouble with the Brexit debate is that it is virtually impossible to kill a bad idea. They just keep getting repeated over and over again, ad nauseum, to the point where one no longer bothers with rebuttals. It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference: their authors are in "broadcast only mode", impervious to outside influences.

Of course, some (even most) politicians are permanently in this mode, with their fingers pressed so firmly on transmit button that no-one else's output can be heard. They prefer it that way as it removes the need to answer criticism or hear their (mostly) stupid ideas torn to shreds.

No more so is this event than in yesterday's contribution from the Labour Party, through the persona of Kier Starmer, determine to exploit the mess left by Mrs May to their own electoral advantage. Very high up in the stupidity stakes is the assertion that, in the event that Mr's May's deal was voted down, the party would make sure parliament offered a legislative route to make "no deal" impossible.

Thus says Starmer, "If the prime minister’s deal is rejected – and that's looking increasingly likely – parliament will not just sit back and allow her to proceed with no deal", thus showing all the signs of failing to understand that "no deal" is the default value that kicks in automatically if the UK fails to reach an agreement with the EU.

But Starmer goes on to say: "There are plenty of Conservative MPs who have come up to me to say that they will not countenance the UK crashing out of the EU without an agreement. There is a clear majority in parliament against no deal, and Labour will work across the Commons to prevent no deal".

This was said to the Observer newspaper and one cannot wholly (or at all) absolve it or the journalists – Toby Helm and Michael Savage – from responsibility for this stupidity. I have had many interviews with journalists who have questioned what I've said to them and it has always been understood they would not usually publish material which was not credible, and demonstrably so.

For there to be a story here, the journalists interviewing Starmer should have reminded him of Article 50 and told him that exit was automatic in the event of failure to reach a deal. If Starmer had then persisted in asserting that he was planning to block a "no deal" departure, the story should have been that the shadow Brexit secretary, after all this time, still doesn't know how Article 50 works.

The problem here is that the journalists are just as wrapped up in their own little "transmit only" bubbles, with a separate feed only to a minuscule group of sources, to which they constantly refer – to the exclusion of all else. This is why it is pointless following journalists on Twitter – the bulk of their posts is often recycled output from other hacks, often accompanied by adoring puffs.

Another recurring feature is the way business (or, at least, corporate business) has mishandled Brexit. Quick of the mark to push "project fear" during the run-up to the referendum, big firms were largely forced into silence during the actual campaign for fear of adverse consumer reaction.

In the aftermath of the referendum, however – when they could legitimately have expressed their preferences for certain outcomes – they remained silent, even when timely and accurate information on the impact of a "no deal" could possible have done some good.

Only latterly did a few businesses emerge, but in small numbers – not enough to escape accusations that they were continuing with the "project fear" meme.

But now, only days after Mrs May's "un-deal" which has the majority of the nation rising up in opposition, business has been quick off the mark to endorse it. Currently launching into the fray is the CBI with its president John Allen at its conference today warning that, while "not perfect", it "opens a route to a long-term trade arrangement".

As one also gets news of the UK running out of food warehouse space, as firms seek to stockpile against the possibility of a "no deal" Brexit, one can sympathise with the concerns of business, even if one has to remark that they score "nil points" for political acumen.

The warehouse situation though, is interesting. Retailers and manufacturers have apparently been rushing to stockpile everything from garden peas to half-cooked supermarket bread and cold-store potatoes, with space fully booked for the next six months. Customers are now being turned away.

But what is especially significant is the comment of Malcolm Johnstone, owner of Associated Cold Stores & Transport (ACST). He says he "started getting inquiries two to three months ago, but they reached fever pitch in the last 48 hours", after the chaos in Westminster last week. "There has been a sea change since Wednesday".

This is absolutely typical in my experience of industry response. The likelihood of a "no deal" has been building steadily over the last six months or so. At any time in that period, I would have thought the situation justified businesses hedging their bets. I've personally invested scarce funds in a three-month stockpile of food and essentials, having started well over a year ago.

Businesses, though, so often leave it to the last minute and then they wonder why they are caught out. It was the same with new legislation; when I worked for a trade association, one would often warn operations to prepare in good time, only for them to do nothing and then complain bitterly when they were caught out.

It strikes me that we live in a politically immature society where even high-level decision-makers act with naivety when it comes to political matters. And when companies do invest in political intelligence, so often they opt for hiring "prestige" figures rather than supporting the sort of well-founded research that trade bodies should be doing but rarely accomplish successfully.

In that context, one is reminded of the low-grade offering from the Institute of Directors last February where they suggested a "hybrid option" with a partial customs union similar in scope to the arrangement between Turkey and the EU.

One, of course, only has to point out that the Turkish border is hardly a model of frictionless trade for this suggestion to be shown up for what it is – another example of the failure of industry to step up to the plate. But, insofar as there is the common feature of a partial customs union, one might say that the draft withdrawal agreement is closest to the Turkish option than any other, the one that had been ruled out by virtually every knowledgeable analyst.

Customs duties and like matters could, of course, have been dealt with by political declaration, with the UK committing to apply the EU's schedules of tariffs to our trade with the rest of the world – which is what is going to happen anyway.

A no-tariff deal as part of the withdrawal agreement would then have been perfectly acceptable. There was never any need, or justification for, a customs union – still less the non-regression clauses that go with it.

But then to have come up with s sensible exit plan for the UK would have required a level of knowledge alien to our decision-makers and an openness of debate which we rarely, if ever, encounter.

Today, The Times gives space to Deborah Meaden, entrepreneur and investor. She argues that the draft withdrawal agreement is not the solution to this Brexit crisis but an exacerbation of it.

But she also expresses surprise at the CBI's stance. At its conference today, where Mrs May has been invited to speak, none of the 100-plus bosses of British businesses who are opposed to this deal and have called for a People’s Vote have been invited to speak.

No matter whether you are "leave", "remain" or just very bored by it all, says Meaden, that defies both business and common sense. As decision-makers and investors we need to know all the information and all the options at this crucial time, she adds.

There she's put her finger on it. Politically, the UK is an information desert. We get all the sound and fury of political debate – and the shifting sands of opinion - but no actual substance. And we are now paying the price.

Sunday 18 November 2018
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The only thing that is now absolutely certain about Brexit is that what we voted for in the referendum was not the utter chaos we are looking at today, writes Booker in today's column.

What most of us making up that 17.4 million imagined we were voting for was not just that we should leave the EU, but also that we should do so with minimal damage to our economy.

But the problems started way back when the Brexiteers behind the official Vote Leave campaign very deliberately decided that they should not put forward any specific plan for how this might be achieved. Their view was that, if any such strategy was proposed, this would only set off ferocious arguments with all those lobbying for alternative plans.

This was evident in a sneery e-mail which Dominic Cummings sent me in July 2015 in response to one of mine when I had argued that the official "no" campaign would need an exit plan.

Cummings by then was already aware of Flexcit, acknowledging that it was "unarguable" that it was "a very important document", but we went on to say that he had to deal with "a physical reality" where "almost nobody agrees … about almost anything".

Thus, it was not a question of the campaign failing to have a plan. The idea was deliberately rejected, an act of cowardice that had the main players ducking an issue that was inevitably going to rebound on us all, simply because the campaign wanted to avoid disagreement in its ranks.

The inevitable result of this act of cowardice - only offering voters a blank cheque as to what might happen next - was that it merely postponed the moment when precisely those arguments were bound to emerge. After the result, each of the rival groups could then claim that the referendum result supported whatever agenda they were putting forward.

The trouble was that none of these competing views, including those of the "ultra" Brexiteers, was based on any proper understanding of the incredibly complex realities of the situation we were facing.

This was never more tellingly demonstrated than by Theresa May's Lancaster House speech in January 2017 when, under the spell of the Brexiteers in her Cabinet, she for the first time announced that we should leave not just the EU itself but also the wider European Economic Area.

Since this meant that we would lose our "frictionless" access to the single market, it inevitably faced us with a whole raft of new problems, from the Northern Irish border and the likeliood that we would risk damaging significant parts of our export trade to the terrifying consequences of our crashing out without a deal.

Only recently does it appear that the government has belatedly woken up to the scale of the disaster this was threatening to almost every part of our economy. And having boxed herself in, that lead to Mrs May finally agreeing the tortuous 585-page "draft withdrawal agreement".

It is impossible to read this document in a single session and the complex bureaucratic phrasing and confusing structure make comprehension difficult. Undoubtedly, even now, few people will have read it and even fewer understand it.

Only by piecing disparate and separate parts, and then cross-relating the text to real world scenarios can sense be made of it. For instance, in the crucial phrasing of Article 1 of the Protocol on Ireland, we see stated that the objective of the withdrawal agreement "is not to establish a permanent relationship between the Union and the United Kingdom".

Thus we are informed that the provisions of the Protocol are "intended to apply only temporarily", a claim on which Mrs May relies when she tells us that it is of no great significance.

The problem arises, however, with the Article stating that the provisions of the Protocol apply" unless and until they are superseded, in whole or in part, by a subsequent agreement".

Article 2 then tells us that the EU and the UK "shall use their best endeavours" to conclude, by 31 December 2020, an agreement which supersedes the Protocol "in whole or in part", so coinciding with the end of the transition period, when the Protocol comes into force.

In theory, in concluding a superseding agreement by this date, the Protocol never comes into force and the problems inherent in its application are avoided. But, in practical terms, the "best endeavours" phrasing is meaningless. It does not create a legal commitment to any defined timescale. It is simply an aspiration.

On the other hand, the reality is that it could take anything up to ten years to conclude the complex free trade agreement that the political declaration has in mind, which means that the Protocol would most certainly have to come into force – even if the transition period was extended.

And even here, there is a serious political issue as we learn that just an extra year could cost the UK an extra £10 billion in contributions to the EU budget.

The unalterable point therefore, is that the UK will find itself having to apply the Protocol while then negotiating with the EU on measures that will replace it. And the key point here is that any measures must respect the requirement to avoid a hard border between the two Irelands.

Therein lies the rub, as the real world intrudes. Nothing which the UK intends to negotiate with the EU by way of "regulatory cooperation" in the framework of a free trade area could adequately replace the Protocol. Nothing proposed could remove the need for the hard border.

With the Protocol then in force, any amendment must be agreed by the body set up by the Protocol – the so-called Joint Committee comprising representatives from the EU and the UK. Acting by "mutual consent", that effectively gives the EU a veto on amendments while refusal to agree would be justified if any measures failed to preserve the "frictionless" border.

Booker picks up the threads here, By this means, he notes that Mrs May has in effect agreed we should remain for an indefinite period in the customs union specified in the Protocol.

The EU will be calling literally all the shots, from making all the rules without consulting us and subject to the rulings of the European Court of Justice, to deciding when this compromise arrangement will end.

But the EU has not stopped there. It piles on the agony demanding that, "with the aim of ensuring the proper functioning of the single customs territory", a huge raft of additional measures must be adopted. Amongst other things, this means we must accept in its entirety all the EU's climate and energy agenda.

All this, says Booker, was why Mrs May was greeted with ridicule when she yet again intoned her robotic mantra that the agreement showed us "taking back control of our laws".

Not surprisingly this prompted furious protests from every part of the political spectrum, which continue to this day. In Booker's view, the chances of the withdrawal agreement being approved by Parliament are "zero". Even if I am less sanguine, no one can dispute that Mrs May's cabinet is in meltdown and that she has plunged British politics into a crisis for which it is almost impossible to think of any historical precedent.

Naturally, Booker concludes, this has left the EU itself in an impossible quandary. No sooner had its leaders acclaimed the agreement as at last a "positive breakthrough" than they saw Mrs May’s government dissolving into such chaos that they could only insist that any further negotiations were out of the question.

Stand by, he says, not just for weeks or months more of chaos, but years of even worse to come.

If we then cut to Simon Heffer in his column, we find him being less than complimentary about the "fatuous five" Brexiteers remaining in the Cabinet.

Including Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom, this group is apparently working on revisions to the draft withdrawal agreement and is pushing Mrs May to insist on Brussels making changes to the draft. This is despite that fact that multiple EU-related sources have made it clear that the draft is final and cannot be revisited.

The key change being demanded by the "fatuous five" is – predictably – that the UK should be afforded the unilateral right to withdraw from the "backstop". Yet, for all the problems it is causing, there is little the EU can do. As long as both parties are committed to a frictionless Irish border, it cannot allow the UK the freedom of action in walking away without equivalent measures in place.

Even at this stage, though, Mrs May could get herself off the hook by moving to adopt the Efta/EEA option although, even now she is denying that this would solve the Irish border problem.

There demonstrated is Mrs May's unending capacity to make a mess of Brexit. Despite the fact that the Protocol achieves frictionless trade by implementing regulatory alignment with the Single Market acquis - the very essence of the Efta/EEA option.

Drowning in her own mess, this stupid woman hasn't the sense to recognise a lifeline dangling in front of her nose. Would that she had someone close to her to spell out in comedy style that this is yet another fine mess she has got us into.

Saturday 17 November 2018
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We have now completed the second full day following the publication of the draft withdrawal agreement. And one might observe that, had the media devoted a fraction of its energies to explaining what the draft was about, compared with its coverage of the political soap opera, we might have a population that is rather better informed.

As it is, YouGov is telling us that 42 percent of the public oppose the deal with only 19 percent in favour – with a substantial body of 39 percent in the "don't know" category. There is also a Survation poll, the results of which are not too dissimilar. Structured slightly differently, it has 27 supporting the government, 49 percent opposing and 18 percent recorded as "neither". The "don't knows" come in at six percent.

What is interesting (and possibly anomalous) about the YouGov poll is that more "remain" voters (47 percent) oppose the deal than "leavers" (42 percent). One might have thought it would have been the other way around, with "remainers" supporting something that kept them closer to their beloved EU.

One can see, however, that tribal loyalties are holding under the strain, with 28 percent of Conservative voters (still a minority- with 41 percent opposing) supporting the deal, against 12 Labour voters and 23 percent LibDems. Of all the groups, LibDems and Labour lodge the greatest opposition, with both on 51 percent.

Were the population better informed, one would expect the "don't knows" to be substantially lower (perhaps in the low teens or single figures) and a highly polarised split, with a very high proportion of "leavers" opposing", with the bulk of "remainers" in favour.

Even if the "remainers" didn't like the deal, they might see in it a tactical advantage. It is so bad that it might trigger the referendum that so many of them want, with the chance of overturning the 2016 vote.

All of this, of course, is hypothetical. One can entertain the thought that the bulk of those who offered opinions were ill-informed (or poorly informed, if there is a distinction), although that does not necessarily invalidate their opinions.

On the basis of what they know, those "leavers" already opposing the deal could, with better knowledge, simply strengthen their opinions. On the other hand, more information generally might up the percentage of "leavers" opposing the deal, but have like effect in adding to the "remainers" supporting the deal.

Assuming that, as time goes by, voter information will increase (not necessarily a sound assumption), it will be interesting to see how that affects support in the real world. Perceptions may vary in unpredictable ways.

What seems to be a reflection of the low-information environment, though, is the number of voters who believe that a better deal could have been negotiated, or that it would still be possible to negotiate a better deal.

However, two-point question renders the response ambiguous. I would certainly answer that a better deal could have been negotiated. But if the ranks of EU Member State leaders are to be believed – including Angela Merkel – improvements are not possible.

The message coming through is that there is "no question" of further talks, not now and not if the deal is rejected by the Westminster parliament. It's that or nothing, which certainly confounds suggestions that any concessions can be squeezed out of the "colleagues". These have been floated over the last couple of days, indicating that some of the worst aspects of the deal can somehow be mitigated.

Even now, we are told, the three Cabinet Brexiteers, Andrea Leadsom, Michael Gove and Penny Mordaunt, are to demand that Mrs May pushes Brussels for further concessions as the price of their loyalty.

These fantasies aside, the problem we face collectively is that we can either have this withdrawal agreement or "no deal". The chips are down and there are no half measures. But to call the draft agreement a "deal" is perhaps to give it a gloss which is simply not supported by reality. In no sense does this facilitate our exit. Rather, it keeps us trapped in the EU in a highly unfavourable, subordinate position.

As long as we were full members of the EU, we have the option of invoking unilaterally Article 50, which automatically drops us out of the EU after two years, with the treaties no longer applying. But what this agreement does is replace the treaties with a similar burden of obligations through the so-called "backstop", while excluding us from the decision-making institutions.

Crucially though, we cannot exit from this arrangement by unilateral declaration. It can be blocked by the EU, which can make its assent conditional on the agreement of a replacement which has the effect of securing frictionless trade across the Irish border. Since the arrangement pencilled in, to be negotiated with the EU, cannot secure this, there is no obvious (or any) way the UK can rid itself of the "backstop".

Previously, I have ventured that we have been offered a BRINO (Brexit In Name Only) but, on reflection, it might be better termed Not Even Brexit (NEB). It is not a deal as such We are being offered an un-deal. And that means the only way we can secure full withdrawal from the EU is to exit without a deal.

This is what Pete is calling a Frankenbrexit and he makes no bones about who he considers to a very great extent to be responsible for this state of affairs: the "ultras", in their manifestation as the ERG. In having blocked the Efta/EEA option, they have forced Mrs May's hand, leaving us with this dog's dinner.

Although we are now seeing the effects of this, the die was cast with Mrs May's Lancaster House speech on 17 January 2017. At that point, in excluding continued participation in the Single Market, she ensured that there was no possibility of staying in the EEA. The outcome that we are saddled with was largely predictable.

As to the UK political response, the lure of the chauffeur-driven car has obviously exerted its effect and the widely touted ministerial revolt has largely stalled. Midair Bacon has been the highest profile casualty, but he has been replaced, with other the gaps also filled.

Although more cabinet resignations are said to be expected, Mrs May so far has walked away intact from her trial by fire. Her next challenge comes from ERG members and their supporters, invoking internal Conservative Party procedures in order to trigger a leadership contest.

For all the hype, this does not have the feel of a successful revolt. King-maker Steve Baker lacks conviction and presence, and the numbers do not stack up. The dynamic which has kept Mrs May in office still seen to be working in her favour. The Party is so divided that no one faction can muster enough supporters to vote their own candidate in, while mutual loathing prevents the formation of powerful alliances.

My guess (unsupported by any direct evidence) is that the immediate threat will peter out, leaving the ERG stranded as the minority rump that it always has been. Its members know that if they invoke the procedure and fail, another challenge cannot be mounted for a year, by which time it would be too late to achieve anything. So, without the numbers, they must stay their hand.

Things may, of course, change. Baker claims the prime minister could face a vote as early as next week, although he cannot deny that the rate of letters coming in to the 1922 Committee to trigger the vote has been "slower than people think".

Nevertheless, there are few things quite so unpredictable as politics and there is always the unexpected to catch out the unwary. But all things being equal (which they rarely are), the most serious challenge to the un-deal will arrive when it goes to parliament for a "meaningful" vote.

So far, we have no indications as to when that vote might be, other than the plan is to have it before Christmas. But we can be fairly well assured that Mrs May loses the vote, it will be followed by a vote of confidence.

Rebel Tory MPs (and the DUP MPs to an extent) could be faced with the prospect of a general election, in which some may well lose their seats. I would not care to bet against ERG supporters folding, just like the Tory rebels did at Maastricht. And if they vote for self before country, Mrs May (and the un-deal) could scrape though by the narrowest of margins.

Without a stake through the heart and a silver bullet in the brain, the un-deal will then roam the land, ripping the guts out of our MPs and emasculating our leaders. The dampening effect of "Europe" on our politics may have a way to go yet. Normal service has not been resumed.

Friday 16 November 2018
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The day the draft withdrawal agreement was published, I posted on Twitter what I thought was a sardonic message. The media, I wrote, have spent all day talking about the Brexit agreement without having any of the details. Just because the agreement has been published, that shouldn't make any difference. They might as well continue as they have before ... they've never needed details before.

I need not have bothered. A mere twenty-four hours on from the publication, the media have abandoned even their perfunctory attempts to inform their customer base of the intricacies of the agreement.

And, if I was like the 79 percent who rely wholly or mainly on the television for my news, the chances of being exposed to any detail would have been very slight indeed. Two main BBC bulletins down, and the kindest one could say of the coverage on the details was that it was superficial.

Furthermore, it is quite clear that we are going to get no candour from the prime minister about the deal who, in trotting out her familiar mantras is now openly lying.

That much was evident from her statement following the cabinet meeting. There was nothing new in it, as she told us the deal: "brings back control of our money, laws and borders; ends free movement; protects jobs, security and our union".

Crucially, as we see non-regression clauses in the agreement, we are locked into maintaining major tranches of Union law, with no discretion afforded to the UK government. And nor is this at all academic. If we go back to pre-referendum times, one of the really big deals was the cost of EU regulation, with the much-touted Open Europe survey which claimed a £33.3 billion annual cost of the 100 "most burdensome" EU regulation.

Prominent in the top five was the EU climate and energy package, with a recurring cost of £3.4 billion a year, with the clear "promise" that leaving the EU would enable us to save those on those costs. Yet, as I pointed out yesterday, we are totally locked into the EU's climate change agenda, including implementing the UN Framework Conventions on Climate Change, latterly reinforced by the Paris Agreement of 2015.

Strangely enough, one of the best clinical analyses of the "backstop" in the withdrawal agreement is in the much-reviled Telegraph and even this does not mention the non-regression requirements.

It is these, as much as anything, which makes a liar of the prime minister. Yet they get one sentence in the analysis offered by the Guardian, and the Independent gives us a mere partial sentence, informing us that the agreement "effectively keeps the UK tied to swathes of EU regulations through 'non-regression' and 'level playing field' clauses…". Otherwise, they are largely invisible in the media.

But there is no point looking to our MPs for clarity. They had their turn yesterday with the prime minister's statement to the House which turned into a three-hour marathon running to 52,000 words in the current edition of Hansard.

Here, in all that torrent of words, there is but one reference to "non-regression", made by the prime minister and limited to a throw-away remark on the question of workers' rights.

Mrs May, predictably, plays down the importance of the backstop, describing it as an "insurance policy" which is never intended to be used. "We want to ensure", she says, "that the future relationship is in place before the backstop is necessary".

This is targeted for December 2020, with the provision for a single extension to the transition period, to allow for delays in the negotiations. Yet this relies on the slender thread of a seven-page document setting out the outline of the political declaration.

All we have on offer hers are: "Comprehensive arrangements creating a free trade area combining deep regulatory and customs cooperation, underpinned by provisions ensuring a level playing field for open and fair competition", yet it is this which is to provide the "alternative arrangements" to ensure "the absence of a hard border on the island of Ireland on a permanent footing".

In her address to the Commons, Mrs May elaborated on this, telling MPs that we were "looking to ensure that we have the frictionless trade across borders that will enable us to not only deliver on our commitment for Northern Ireland, but ensure that we have frictionless trade between the United Kingdom and the whole of the rest of the European Union".

One really does not have to be an expert in this context to know by now that the provision merely of a free trade agreement, even if it combines "deep regulatory and customs cooperation", does not secure " frictionless trade across borders". Not by any stretch of the imagination could this ensure the absence of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

The prime minister, therefore, is attempting to sell us a false prospective, one that can only rebound on us when any arrangements have to be approved by the Joint Committee, in which the EU has a veto.

This, at least, was challenged, albeit weakly, by Frank Field in yesterday's debate, when he asked Mrs May to "guarantee to the House that at the end of March we will continue to have frictionless supply chains". This is what he got by way of a response:

We have also based the concept of the free trade area on the need for that frictionless trade in goods, to ensure that the people whose jobs depend on those supply chains do not see those jobs go, and that not only are we able to retain those jobs, but, with the other trade agreements that we are able to bring forward once we are outside the European Union, we can enhance the economy and create more jobs in this country.

Worryingly, Frank Field's challenge was not repeated, or expanded upon by other MPs, leaving Mrs May's claims hanging, the equivalent of arguing that black equals white.

In the following exchanges, however, there was some appreciation that this withdrawal agreement – and the backstop – does not fulfil the commitment to "taking back control" but this has not really carried over into today's media. There, in all its glory, is the soap opera of ministerial resignations, leadership challenges, rebellions and elections.

Notably, though, in what was styled as a "defiant press conference" in Downing Street yesterday, Mrs May had subtly changed her message to the public.

The deal, she then claimed, delivered on the vote of the British people by "ending free movement … ensuring we are not sending vast annual sums to the EU any longer [and] ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice". It also protected jobs and people's livelihoods, our security, and the union of the United Kingdom.

Interestingly, there was no mention of taking back control of our borders, nor of our law. And not by any measure has Mrs May set in train a process where we regain control over the regulatory agenda.

Therein, one can assert, lies the greatest flaw in the entire draft agreement. Had we adopted the Efta/EEA option, we would have limited the scope of the regulation which would have applied, and would have had some influence over new measure – with a right of veto.

But Mrs May has been amongst those to have rejected this option, precisely because we had to accept [some] EU laws, while she also wrongly asserted that we would have no say in the making of new laws. But in exchange, she wants us to accept an arrangement which is inestimably worse, taking in a wide range of EU law from an entirely subordinate position, with no easy exit clause.

For all that, though, the dangers of a "no deal" have been understood by some newspapers, so we have The Times arguing that MPs should "back Mrs May or gamble on a second referendum".

That is about as incoherent as Mrs May's draft withdrawal agreement, with neither option taking us closer to leaving the EU. The only real option in place now which unequivocally respects the verdict of the 2016 referendum is the "no deal".

That it should have come to that is a tragedy, and more so when we have a media so obsessed with the theatre of it all that it can't be bothered to explain the issues.

Thursday 15 November 2018
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You will doubtless be pleased to know that the objective of the "withdrawal agreement", the draft of which was published yesterday, is "to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union and Euratom". Additional link here.

To achieve that vital task, it has used the letter "a" 37,207 times, "k" a mere 2,229 times and "t" 49,159 times in the 585-page draft. I just thought you ought to know that.

By similar token, in all of the 585 pages, the term "customs union" is used exactly twice. This is an area of particular concern and, given such a long and complex document, has to be the main focus of this blogpost.

The first reference to "customs union" is in relation to the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland, where it is agreed in the recital that the protocol should be based on maintaining full alignment with those rules of the Union's internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement (the GFA).

These rules are to apply unless and until an alternative arrangement implementing another scenario is agreed. The second reference, also in the recital to the Protocol, notes that the rights and obligations of Ireland under the rules of the Union's internal market and customs union must be fully respected.

One can more or less disregard the second reference and take it that the first requires Northern Ireland to conform with the rules of the EU's Single Market and Customs Union, until "an alternative arrangement" is agreed.

On the face of it, that would seem to be creating a separate administrative zone for Northern Ireland but, of course, that is not the case. In what is a complex sleight of hand, worthy of any senior member of The Magic Circle, multiple separate provisions have to be tied together. When they are, they transform the situation.

The first is Article 6 to the Protocol which states that, until the future relationship becomes applicable, a single customs territory between the Union
and the United Kingdom shall be established. Thus, as before we supposedly left the EU, the UK is part of a "single customs territory". Furthermore, Northern Ireland is in the same customs territory as Great Britain.

Now, that alone does not tell the whole story – not by any means. If there is to be a "single customs territory", rules must apply to it. But these rules are not to be found in the Article. It refers you to Annex 2 to the Protocol, which apply in respect of all trade in goods between the territories.

Referring then to Annex 2, we find an interesting omission – it does not bear any title. It is only as you go through all six articles do you realise what it is. This sets out in clear concise language the provisions of a customs union, thereby abolishing tariffs and like measures through the territory, and setting what amounts to a common external tariff.

For the duration – i.e., until alternative arrangements apply – the UK is told that "under no circumstances" can it apply to its customs territory "a customs tariff which is lower than the Common Customs Tariff for any good or import from any third country".

Not indeed does it stop there, as the Annex also requires the UK to "harmonise the commercial policy applicable to its customs territory with the common commercial policy of the Union". For the duration, we are thus in lock-step with the Union.

As to the "detailed rules relating to trade in goods" between the two parts of the single customs territory, we are in effect than bound by yet another provision. This is Annex 3 which imposes a raft of detailed requirements (formalities) relating to the production of movement certificates and the validation of the status of the goods.

From a study of the text here, the bureaucratic style of which does not make comprehension easy, we see also that customs authorities which issue certificates have to take "any steps necessary to verify the status of the products and the fulfilment of the other requirements of the Protocol and of this Annex". This, as far as I can see, requires checks to be carried out, some of which will doubtless involve cross border checks.

To pull the whole picture together, one then has to cross-read with Annex 4, which requires "cooperation" on taxation, extending to a commitment to continue to apply substantial provisions of Union law, "as applicable at the end of the transition period".

The UK must also commit to "non-regression in the level of environmental protection", whereby the United Kingdom "shall ensure that the level of environmental protection provided by law, regulations and practices is not reduced below the level provided by the common standards applicable within the Union and the United Kingdom at the end of the transition period".

It its own environmental legislation, the UK is required to "respect" key EU principles , which include: the precautionary principle; the principle that preventive action should be taken; the principle that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source; and the "polluter pays" principle.

We are also required to take the necessary measures to meet our commitments to international agreements to address climate change, including those which implement the United Nations Framework Conventions on Climate Change, such as the Paris Agreement of 2015.

Additionally, we have to implement a system of carbon pricing of at least the same effectiveness and scope as that provided by Directive 2003/87/EC. Provisions relating to the monitoring and enforcement related to environmental protection must also be maintained.

Non-regression must also apply to labour and social standards. With the aim of ensuring the proper functioning of the single customs territory, the UK has to ensure that the level of protection provided for by law, regulations and practices is not reduced below the level provided by the common standards applicable within the Union and the United Kingdom at the end of the transition period.

And not content with that, "with a view to preserving a robust and comprehensive framework for State aid control that prevents undue distortions of trade and competition", the Union State aid law provisions listed in yet another Annex – this one Annex 8 - must apply to the UK. Furthermore, competition provisions set out in Union law still apply.

Throughout the protocol, there is a constantly repeating phrase, where provisions of Union law apply "to and in the United Kingdom in respect of Northern Ireland". The meaning of this, no doubt, is clear to its authors but to my mind holds a level of ambiguity. Does the law apply to the UK as a whole, or just Northern Ireland?

Ostensibly in an attempt to clarify issues, there is a technical explanatory note and the Commission has published some additional fact sheets, with one on the protocol. These seem to confirm (unless I am very much mistaken) that the protocol reaches past the transition period and stays unless in force until it is superseded, in whole or in part, by a subsequent agreement.

This, effectively, is the "backstop", and the fact sheet makes it clear that the single EU-UK customs territory is established "from the end of the transition period until the future relationship becomes applicable". That effectively means the whole of the UK is locked into a customs union, after the end of the transition period, until a permanent solution to the border problem is agreed.

Yet, getting rid of these provisions is not going to be easy. The way it works, apparently, is that at any time after the transition period, the EU or the UK may consider that the Protocol, in whole or in part, is no longer necessary.

That party must then notify the other, setting out its reasons. This kicks in a "Joint Committee" - established in Article 164 of the Withdrawal Agreement – which considers the notification and may seek an opinion from institutions created by the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement 1998.

Following discussions in the Joint Committee, the EU and the UK may decide jointly that the Protocol, in whole or in part, is no longer necessary to achieve its objectives.

The way this Joint Committee is set up, it is required to adopt its decisions and make its recommendations "by mutual consent", which means that the EU has a veto on when (or if) the UK can drop out of the customs union, with a final appeal to an arbitration panel. On matters of Union law, however, the ECJ has jurisdiction to make rulings, which are binding on the arbitration panel.

Any which way you look at it, this accumulation of issues raises many important questions. It is hard to see that the UK has secured the ability unilaterally to remove the "backstop" and, as the agreement stands, it is possible to see a scenario where the UK is locked in perpetuity into a customs union with the EU.

The issues relating to the single market, and regulatory checks is by no means clear and, it seems, are still not fully resolved, leaving areas for future dispute.

But, just from what we have seen, there is ample material to support an assertion that this is Brexit in Name Only (BRINO). If the ERG and the DUP buy into this, their credibility will be shot to Hell. This is exactly the fudge that should never have been accepted by Mrs May. She is now in the line of fire.

Wednesday 14 November 2018
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I suppose one could get excited about the wondrous "breakthrough" on Brexit, news of which is dominating the media. There are however, a few small problems which could serve to dampen spirits just a little.

The first of these little problems concerning which is described as a "technical agreement" between the negotiators, is that no one in the UK - outside the very limited band of officials and cabinet ministers – has actually seen a copy. Nobody currently commenting in public on it, including (or especially) the media, has any certain idea of what's in it.

Secondly, considering that this is supposed to be an agreement between two parties, there is that very odd silence from Brussels, where we have yet to see an official statement. And we are seeing nothing like the situation of December last when the joint statement was published simultaneously on both the Commission and the UK Government's websites.

One can speculate on all sorts of reasons as to why this should be the case, and why this apparent deal is being handled in such an odd way, but the most obvious thing is that Mrs May wants to have the backing of (what's left of) her cabinet before going public, to give her a head start in the publicity stakes.

As with all these things though, the devil is in the detail and, as it stands, there isn't a lot of (reliable) detail to be going on with. We seem to have gravitated from a "no deal" scenario to an invisible deal, redolent of those secret treaties the great powers of old used to sign.

On reflection, I'm surprised Mrs May hasn't thought of this before. If she could keep the withdrawal agreement secret, then there can be no argument over the details and the MPs could cast their votes on what they think the deal means – which is probably what they're going to do anyway.

It stands to reason, though, that the sticking point(s) must have been resolved – or fudged in such a way as to pass muster. And from what we understand, the "backstop" is now "fixed" in such a way that a joint arbitration panel can rule on when it is no longer necessary, although the details are frustratingly vague – which is undoubtedly the intention.

Nevertheless, that which we do know (or don't) has been sufficient for the "usual suspects" to erupt in condemnation, branding the deal a betrayal.

This rather suggests that even if Mrs May gets her invisible deal past the cabinet, she is still going to meet considerable opposition from within her own party – to say nothing of the DUP which, as yet, has not been shown the agreed text.

With the general public – and us mere plebs – in exactly the same position, there is nothing left but, for those who feel so inclined, to await the crumbs from the media table, in the wake of an emergency cabinet meeting scheduled for today. One then presumes that, if Mrs May still has a functioning government, the EU will be prepared to set up its November European Council after all.

Oddly enough (or perhaps not), the Irish cabinet is also meeting today, actually at 9.30, beating the slothful Brits to the punch. They are not due to meet until the afternoon.

Until we all see the detail, though, there is not a great deal of point in adding more noise to the cacophony. If the deal actually goes to parliament, the legacy media will be in its seventh heaven, as it can play the Westminster votes game to its heart's content.

Meanwhile, of a more substantive nature, the Commission has published COM(2018) 880 final. It sets out the "Contingency Action Plan" as part of preparing for the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union. This has to be read in conjunction with COM(2018) 556 final/2, the update of which was published on 28 August 2018.

The document reminds us that, regardless of the nature of any withdrawal agreement, the UK will still become a third country when it leaves the EU and there will be considerable disruption, adding to the earlier document. In that, Member States and private parties were being called upon to step up preparations for Brexit, following up a request by the European Council to intensify preparedness at all levels and for all outcomes.

Of special interest to this blog – in view of the amount of coverage we've given the issue – the earlier COM notes that when the UK becomes a third country, and in the absence of an agreement providing otherwise, the strict EU rules in relation to sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) conditions and controls on animals, plants and their products, will apply to the UK as any other third country.

It then states that trade can take place [only] once the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) conditions for the relevant agri-food products and the corresponding certification and control requirements are established.

Physical infrastructures, it says. will have to be put in place to allow all movements of live animals and animal products (including food of animal origin), and certain plants and plant products, to go through Border Inspection Posts (BIPs) at seaports, at airports or at land, as required by EU rules. The capacity of existing posts may need to be increased while new posts will also be necessary.

This only confirms what we've been saying for better than two years, but I am still not sure this message has percolated fully into the collective brains of government, parliament or the media. It is certainly the case that the implications haven't been fully understood.
Such issues need to be given far greater emphasis then they are currently getting, as it is most unlikely that there will be a waiver on any of the provisions, which will apply even in the event of a free trade agreement being negotiated.

To an extent, the emphasis on Northern Ireland and the border has been a distraction. Border controls will have real impact on people's lives, and severely handicap our trade arrangements, yet very little planning seems to be in place to deal with the consequences.

In some respects, however, the situation is not going to be as bad as has been feared, and there is some provision for bilateral agreements between the UK and EU Member States. There is reference to this in the Commission's current COM, but the possibilities were highlighted in a recent report to the French Senate, translated by Guardian journalist Kim Wilshire.

The French government, it appears, would be prepared to continue arrangements for the mutual recognition of qualifications, and for agreements "to ensure the continuity of the flows of road transport of goods or persons".

Specifically, the intention of the Government is "to unilaterally recognise in France for a temporary period, on condition of reciprocity, the validity of the certificates and authorisations enjoyed by companies established in the United
Kingdom, as well as the professional titles issued in the United Kingdom".

The stated purpose of this is to enable the carrying out of road transport operations of goods and persons by British carriers. This would be done by prolonging at least temporarily the conditions under which these companies operate on the French territory, in order to avoid any sudden interruption of flows to France or in transit on the territory of France.

The Senate report is careful to note that such provisions would only be taken in the absence of measures at Union level, which in many ways would be preferable. Should the UK have to rely on bilateral agreements, everything will have to be multiplied times 27, to give the same coverage that we currently enjoy.

In the French case, either an agreement with the European Union, or failing that, a bilateral agreement with France, would be necessary to ensure that European Union carriers, and in particular French carriers operating in the United Kingdom, enjoy the same advantages as France, those granted in the territory of the Union to British carriers.

Notably though, in COM(2018) 880, the Commission asks Member States to refrain from bilateral discussions and agreements with the UK, "which would undermine EU unity". The caveat, of course, is quite important, but it is also interesting to see that the French Government in some areas is acting unilaterally, while expecting reciprocity. These are not bilateral agreements as such, but coordinated unilateralism.

Such detail has been largely obscured by the "high politics" of the withdrawal agreement, and if we are getting to the point where this is to be resolved, then it would be a welcome relief, allowing us to start concentrating on the many practical issues that need to be settled before the essence of normality can be restored in our post-Brexit relations.

This unusual streak of optimism, though, should not conceal the fact that our earlier analyses have drawn the conclusion that there is no form of words in the withdrawal agreement that can simultaneously satisfy the UK government, the Westminster Parliament, the DUP and the EU.

For all the media hyperventilation, therefore, we are actually no further forward today than we were at the beginning of yesterday, and it remains to be seen whether Mrs May's deal is just a flash in the pan. But as long as it remains the "invisible deal" we can live in hope. It's a pity in a way that it has to be spoiled by such boring things as details.

Tuesday 13 November 2018
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There is a chance, of course, that we're being played. The negotiators from both sides, when they meet in Brussels, could be sitting at their screens playing video games. The final press release is already printed with just the date to add.

But there again, we could be looking at the biggest mess since we left the cat in the living room for 48 hours and forget to let it out. At least the product of that little disaster could be spread on the garden (not that there's been any shortage lately), which is more than can be said for what is actually being delivered by the combined efforts of Teams EU and UK.

Apparently, they were still talking at 2.45 on Sunday morning, packing up fifteen minutes before I posted on the blog. These part-timers do so feel they're hard done-by.

But so it came to pass that, at the General Affairs Council, Michel Barnier explained that "intense negotiating efforts continue", but "an agreement has not been reached yet". To no one's surprise, key issues remain under discussion, "in particular a solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland".

According to The Times, although no deal has been agreed, we do have the "architecture of a deal. It is clear to both sides what the political trade-offs are that will have to be made for an agreement to be reached.

Others are more blunt about what went on, asserting that the Brussels talks actually broke down after Olly Robbins told his opposite number that he could not "go back to the cabinet" with what the Commission was proposing.

So that's what it comes to. The two sides know what they need to agree, but do not yet know whether they can – but most likely they can't. And if that really is the case, we're up the proverbial creek and so far away from a paddle that even if we were holding an illustrated book on the history of paddles, we'd still be wondering what they were.

Nevertheless, it seems that there could be some movement. If The Times is to be believed, Mrs May is intending today to brief her cabinet on the state of play with the idea of "unlocking" a deal by Wednesday. Hope, as they say, springs eternal.

For all that, confusion abounds as the same newspaper has Michel Barnier angering Downing Street by claiming that today's meeting of the cabinet would be shown the parameters of an agreement.

What we should make of this is anybody's guess. But the Independent more or less confirms that there are problems. Yesterday lunchtime, it was reporting that Downing Street had dismissed any idea that a Brexit deal was close, saying any suggestion of an imminent agreement should be taken with "a bucket of salt".

As the story was updated, the same paper told us that "hopes are fading" for the November Council as Downing Street admitted "substantial issues" are still to be overcome between London and Brussels – as indicated by the General Affairs Council.

I guess the timelines are important here because the story has been developing with such speed that things could have changed, leaving The Times on the money. Or it could be that the Independent has got the real story and Mrs May has an empty slot in her diary for Wednesday.

There again, its updated story, The Times also had the "bucket of salt" quote, so it would appear that we really don't have a deal in the offing. At least, with that, we're back in familiar territory.

That is a territory all too familiar to the Guardian. It is telling us that Britain has all but given up on a special "Brexit summit" at the end of November. There remain, it says, too many sticking points to complete the talks in the time "originally hoped for".

This paper also confirms what is already evident from multiple sources, that there has been "no breakthrough at the moment". And that inevitably means that today's scheduled cabinet meeting could not possibly have been the substantive discussion allowing ministers to sign off the UK's Brexit negotiating position. The best that can happen is that the cabinet will note developments and discuss no-deal planning.

Just supposing, against all the odds, a Brexit deal could be signed off by the EU at the European Council on 13-14 December, that in any case would leave little time to squeeze in a parliamentary vote to ratify the agreement before Christmas.

This brings the Guardian into the fray with an editorial declaring that that Mrs May is looking for a deal "so vacuous that it will be meaningless". It is significant, the paper then remarks, that three out of four living former prime ministers – Mr Brown, Tony Blair and John Major – alight on a national plebiscite to solve the Brexit conundrum.

Since the Tories have spent months saying no deal is better than a bad deal, it goes on to say, the British public might, given the chance, take them at their word. If MPs were to refuse to support a Brexit plan, or to ask for more time to get a better deal or to vote for a general election, there would be chaos.

Under those "foreseeable circumstances", the Guardian thus declares, it would be foolish to rule out another referendum. And there we have another recruit to the referendum cause, even though there is no acknowledgement that more time would be needed for that purpose alone.

This is an interesting development where the only way out of the impasse is seen as a surrender to the forces of populism that supposedly got us into the mess in the first place – a referendum to catch a referendum, so to speak.

However, this may be all too late. Several sources, such as the this and this, have it that Dominic Raab, at the head of a group of "senior cabinet ministers" is ready to tell Mrs May that the current deal on offer from the EU is unacceptable. They want her to prepare the UK to leave with "no deal", unless she can secure further concessions.

This cabal apparently has the backing of former foreign secretary William Hague, arguing that the prime minister and her cabinet must start "fully preparing the country to leave without a deal".

Faced with serious cabinet opposition, and little chance of getting the current deal past the Westminster Parliament – and even less chance of getting any concessions out of Brussels - this may leave the prime minister with no option but to give way to the pressure.

In many respects, Mrs May is already halfway there, telling her audience at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in the City that she would not push for an agreement "at any cost". And at this stage, it would be very easy to engineer a "no deal" scenario by default.

All that has to happen is that Mrs May does exactly what she is doing at the moment – stalling. A succession of missed deadlines and inconclusive talks can bring her inexorably to the 29 March, when we drop out of the EU automatically.

The advantage for Mrs May is that the default option bypasses parliament and, to an extent, marginalises the cabinet. The automaticity means that no one has to decide anything. We just leave – something the "ultras" have always wanted.

The irony of all this is that, despite the number players in the field, all pushing their own agendas, no one is actually in control. Once Mrs May pressed the button to start the Article 50 countdown, having already closed down her options, it was almost pre-ordained that we were going to end up with a "no deal" Brexit.

What is so utterly bizarre about all this though is the idea that we can "full prepare" for this eventuality. Leaving without a deal essentially hands the initiative to Brussels and the Member States, with limited potential for reducing what will inevitably be major damage to the economy.

It is only because the government has played down the consequences of a "no deal" and the media has not joined all the dots, that this can even be contemplated. But far from an outside chance, it now has to be said that "no deal" looks to be the most likely outcome of the negotiations.

If then the government spends the next four months of so preparing, there is a possibility that we could end up with a "crypto deal", as a series of bridging deals – on issues such as aviation – are pencilled in for implementation shortly after we leave.

But, in all this uncertainty, there is one near-certainty: we are likely to see massive business flight as every operation that can jump ship looks for safer quarters on the continent. Responding to the oaf's "fuck business" remark earlier this year, somebody might even invest in some skywriting (pictured) to send a message, as they depart these shores.

Monday 12 November 2018
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While we are seeing an orgy of introspection amongst (some) remainers, obsessed with their second referendum and the unfairness of life, the universe and everything, the tragi-comedy of the Brexit soap opera continues apace.

As we left it yesterday, Mrs May had been told that EU Ambassadors had refused to accept her Schrödinger's backstop. EU negotiators, we learn, want the ECJ to have an automatic role in ruling on whether Britain could dump this mystical beast, something that bumps right up against the UK's red lines.

One report has EU officials and diplomats fearing that divisions within Mrs May's cabinet and wider splits in her party mean that she is unable to give her chief negotiator, Olly Robbins, a clear mandate allowing him to seal a deal over the next 48 hours.

But, if the Independent is to be believed, the situation is far worse than that. Confronted with the prospect of having absolutely nothing to offer, she has cancelled a cabinet meeting planned for today, simply because there is no longer a deal for her colleagues to approve – not that they would approve it even if there was a deal, which there isn't.

Actually, the Monday meeting was originally set for last Thursday – or even Wednesday. Then it became Friday and then it became today. And now it isn't any day soon, if ever.

Effectively, this means that the already slender chances of securing a November agreement with the EU have all but vanished. Although there is still the possibility of something happening at the routine Tuesday cabinet, the problems haven't gone away. Another day, or even another month, isn't enough to magic up an alternative.

Furthermore, the failure of the cabinet to deliver means that HMG will miss out on the General Affairs Council meeting today, when Michel Barnier will be updating the EU-27 foreign ministers on the state of play on the Brexit talks.

Missing this slot could prove to be the last straw which ensures there will be no November meeting. It would have been at the General Affairs Council that Barnier would have made his recommendations which would then have been conveyed to the European Council.

What this says that, after all this time – nearly 900 days from the referendum – we're basically no further forward. One could say that we're back where we started, except that, on reflection, Mrs May's plan never really got off the ground. The uncomprehending stupidity of her Lancaster House speech saw to that.

On the face of it, that leaves only one destination – a nice shiny "no deal" awaits us for 29 March, the "accidental Brexit" that we've long feared, arising simply because the players didn't know what else to do, or how to deliver it.

Even if the December Council then agrees to look at Brexit, that isn't going to be much help. After all this time, Mrs May hasn't been able to stitch up anything that will keep her own side and the EU negotiators happy. It seems hardly possible that another month is going to make the difference.

One assumes, though, that something has to break – if only because it must. But at this stage, looking down the tunnel into the unremitting darkness, there is not even that slight relief of a light in the distance that may or may not be a train coming in the other direction. The cupboard marked "deals" is bare – and so is the tunnel.

Still, though, the rhetoric spills out. One of those ever-helpful anonymous sources "close to the government" acknowledges the delay but says: "The fact is that we have got to get something that's right. We are not going to accept an outline deal at all costs and we are still working on it".

Optimistic that might sound to some, but it feels closer to a death knell. Mrs May has run out of options. If she can get anything past Brussels, she won't keep her own people on-side. The only chance is a miracle in the near future, where the ERG suddenly go all soft and cuddly, roll over and let Mrs May tickle their tummies.

And with that extremely unlikely to happen, as Brussels is giving her nothing she can use as leverage. Confirming this is yet another anonymous source. This one is a "senior UK government aide", who says he is "increasingly pessimistic" about the chances of the deal given the demands from Brussels in recent days. "They are pushing and pushing on everything", he says.

That would seem to suggest that, far from relaxing its grip, to give Mrs May a break, the EU is making no concessions. Whether this is last-minute game playing, or something more sinister, is difficult to tell. But with the talks going to the wire, they are leaving it perilously close if they do intend to broker a deal.

In fact – according to the Financial Times - Brussels is ramping up the pressure, demanding that that the UK concedes tough environmental targets and EU oversight of state aid rules as part of the "backstop". It's almost as if they can smell the blood in the water.

Add to that demands from Brussels on EU access to UK fishing waters – very much a dog-whistle issue for the "Ultras" – and it is almost as if the EU is deliberately trying to engineer a breakdown in Westminster.

Already, there are more threats of resignations from pro-EU ministers, in the wake of Jo Johnson, while Andrea Leadsom, Commons Leader, is flatly stating that Parliament would reject any attempt to give the EU control over the backstop. And since that is already a deal-breaker, there would appear to be no possible way of making progress.

Anywhere we look, therefore, there is negativity. It doesn't matter which source you look at, there is no comfort to be had, while the oaf writes that the government seems to be on the verge of total surrender and is calling for a "cabinet mutiny".

Needless to say, he is spewing out his usual gibberish, arguing that "we get rid of the backstop; we agree with the EU, the Irish and the commission that there is no need for a hard border in Ireland; and we get on with a SuperCanada free trade deal".

It is difficult to believe that anybody could be quite so stupid, ignoring the fact that the EU's central requirement is for a "backstop", without which nothing else can be agreed. One wonders how many times the EU has to say it before it finally sinks in to the "Ultra" tendency.

However, that has not stopped Nick boles disinterring his failed "Norway for Now " proposal, relying on the prestige of "leading lawyers" to come up with something just as inane as the original.

Still wrongly calling Art 112 an "emergency brake" – thereby illustrating his lack of grasp of the subject - he also fails once again to understand that the EEA Agreement is an adaptive framework and, to make it work will require a comprehensive skein of amendments to the EEA Agreement.

Instead, he seems to think that retaining existing EU arrangements (despite being outside the EU) can bridge the gap between leaving the EU and setting up a "new set of agreements" with the EU, inside his "Canada" option. In other words, he now wants to be in the EEA but not ruled by the EEA.

At least Mr Boles is not challenging the general presumption that the very last thing you can rely on from Conservative Party MPs is intellectual coherence. His "Norway for Now" idea has even less chance of being adopted than Mrs May's own rejected "backstop" proposals.

More prominent though is the talk of mutiny, and with that in the air, one has a mental picture of Mrs May at the point of a cutlass, walking the plank, ready to take the dive into shark-infested waters.

This is much more than just a bad day at the office. But, if the alternative is following the path set by Johnson (or Boles for that matter), one can almost imagine her doing it willingly.

Sunday 11 November 2018
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After making a complete fool of itself last week, with its faux story of an impending deal, The Sunday Times has returned to the fray this weekend with a mirror opposite. Without admitting that there was no actual deal last week, the paper has picked up on the manoeuvring of the May team as it struggles to find a form of words that will keep all sides happy.

In this instance "Team UK" has happened on a sort of "Schrödinger's backstop", a permanent backstop that doesn't really exist because it isn't ever going to be used. And it isn't permanent because, even though it doesn't exist, it can be ended by a fiendish device called independent arbitration, when a third part body decides it's safe to abolish.

This was going to be the magic wand that was going to get Mrs May off the hook and allow her to sign up to a withdrawal agreement which incorporated a legal commitment to a backstop. The EU would be happy and, in theory, the ERG-fodder would also be happy because, simultaneously, this would be a non-backstop.

However, there has since emerged, one very slight problem with this cunning plan – the EU won't buy it. This means that Schrödinger's backstop has rematerialised and dropped dead in Mrs May's lap. She has nowhere to go but to bury the corpse.

And it is that which has given The Sunday Times its story for today with a front page headline for its print edition, declaring: "May's Brexit deal crashes as EU 'turns off life support'". For all its busy-bee activity though, it was actually beaten to the draw almost 24 hours ago by HuffPost which yesterday was running the headline: "May's Brexit Deal Suffers Major Setback After EU 'Rejects' UK Arbitration Mechanism".

Needless to say, we also had it on the blog which had me suggesting that Mrs May should be planning to leave the country under an assumed name. But also joining with us is the Independent. Not quite as dramatic as The Sunday Times, the paper merely talks of a "fresh blow" for Theresa May. Ambassadors, we learn, have been told that there has been "no significant progress" on the Irish border.

Oddly, the text is tougher than the headline, talking of a Brexit deal being thrown into "fresh jeopardy". Crucially, it refers to an "optimistic" timetable, one floated by Downing Street after Dominic Raab had been presented with a legal text agreed by officials last Tuesday.

From there, is seems, false hopes had been raised and it is those hopes which have now been dashed. The ambassadors have been told by Barnier's deputy, Sabine Weyand, that there was no agreement on the "Schrödinger's backstop", the infamous "joint review mechanism".

Notwithstanding any of the longer-term effects, the immediate consequences of this "setback" is that there is next to no chance of agreeing an outline deal by the middle of next week. And, as the Independent helpfully points out, if that deadline is missed, it is unlikely that there will be a European Council in November.

If December is now the earliest we can see a deal – and nothing is assured – the UK will be forced to put serious money into "no deal" preparations. Even then, to make that work, a huge rump of legislation has to be passed through Parliament. There is barely time.

That, though, is the least of Mrs May's worries. The Observer is stealing the Telegraph's clothes by focusing on the turmoil in the Tory ranks, retailing accusations from former education secretary, Justine Greening, that the prime minister is planning the "biggest giveaway of sovereignty in modern times".

This, we are told, represents part of a "potentially devastating pincer movement" from Tory remainers and leavers, uniting for the first time to condemn her plans. Greening has told the paper: "The parliamentary deadlock has been clear for some time. It's crucial now for parliament to vote down this plan".

Typically, for an intellectually bankrupt Commons, they are throwing their weight behind the so-called "people's vote", which is anything but. And, if this actually got anywhere and the 2016 result was overturned, it would – as Pete notes - be the end of democracy.

Leaving, he writes, did not have to be an economic calamity. There are ways to do it safely but in the end we lacked the political coherence and competence, not least because those responsible for doing this to us never any intention of respecting the vote.

When you stand back from this, Leave voters have no reason to trust in our politics and that, to a considerable extent, explains why so many are uncompromising. The consequences of ignoring the 2016 verdict would be long-lasting and dangerous.

The whole point of a having a voting system is to achieve regime change without bloodshed. While other nations riot, we go to the polls. Staying in the EU would send a signal to millions of people that change cannot be secured in this country without violence. The compact between the people and their government will be broken.

That said, the one thing on which Mrs May has been entirely consistent is on her refusal to allow a second vote. And, in that matter she has the whip hand as so many MPs seem unable to understand that "no deal" is the default mode. All Mrs May has to do is stall and, on 29 May we are out of the EU.

From then on, re-admission to the EU would be via Article 49, with terms yet to be stated, much less agreed. And if anyone wants to contemplate serious, nation-wide riots, all that has to happen is for a government to attempt to rejoin without a referendum.

Basically, whichever way we look at it, Brexit is a political fixture. The terms of the Political Parties, Elections and
Referendums Act 2000 preclude a snap referendum and, without an extension to the Art 50 period, there is no time for that contest. And, given the UK's deteriorating relationship with the EU, it would be a brave man who assumed that we would get more time.

Assuming we do get some sort of a Brexit deal though – if got no other reason than the EU institutions and the EU Member States need more time to prepare – that it is pretty obvious that we are looking at an unholy mess. And such is the careless and inaccurate use of terminology that it's not even possible to work out, with any certainty, what might or might not be on the agenda.

At the very least, we might see a tariff-free deal, but the weight of non-tariff barriers that are set to descend on us have the potential to crush the like out of the UK economy.

When we start seeing reports that hospital food is at risk from a "no deal" Brexit and the Department of Health is writing to health trusts advising them to make contingency plans to deal with a shortage of imported ingredients, then it is time to start taking this very seriously indeed.

I've already noted several times that, with advanced planning, there is no need for there to be food shortages after Brexit, but keeping imports moving comes at the cost of shutting down much of our export trade. And, as I've also pointed out, if the Channel routes are disrupted, we cannot expect other ports to pick up the slack.

Understandably, the focus today in on the 100th Anniversary of the end of the First World War – a war which, incidentally, was the intellectual cradle for the European Union.

That war was supposed to be the war to end all wars but, after the second, we saw the belated emergence of the structures which were to become the EU, supposedly aimed at preventing another European war that could no longer happen in the traditional mould.

A construct which has since submerged the very democracy that its founders supposedly sought to protect, a hundred years on we are facing a new fight to repair what is left of our democracy and bring life back into our politics. And, while we no longer have to confront the wholesale slaughter of trench warfare, it would be wrong to suppose that mankind has altogether forsaken violence.

While rightly we celebrate the peace the 1918 brought us, and mourn the needless loss of millions of lives, we also need to recognise that, in its own ways, each generation has to fight for its liberties anew.

And it fair to say that, given the intellectual genesis of the EU – born on the battlefield of Verdun - we will not be free of the shadow of the First World War until we have restored our own independence, and learnt to live harmoniously with our neighbours without the supervision of Monnet's Platonic guardians.

Saturday 10 November 2018
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I have it on very good authority from somebody who has met him several times, that Jo Johnson, erstwhile transport minister, is as stupid as his brother – stupid in the way that only intelligent men can be.

This is a man who, until yesterday, most of us didn't even know existed – much less that he was a minister. And now he has resigned in protest at Mrs May's handling of Brexit, declaring her approach to Brexit to be "a failure on a scale not seen since Suez".

His parting shot is to demand a referendum in which the people would be asked to confirm their decision to leave the EU. If they chose to do that, they would then be asked to give them the final say on whether we leave with the prime minister's deal or without it.

Apart from anything else, this is a complex, conditional question sequence which could not give a clear-cut result. It could thus not pass the "intelligibility" test so the Electoral Commission could never agree it, even if a referendum was possible – which it isn't.

One really does weary of this. For there to be a referendum, at the very least six months would be needed, although probably longer. David Cameron's Brexit referendum took just over a year to get to the ballot box.

With less then five months to go and a deal unlikely now to be agreed by December – if then – the EU would have to agree an extension to the Article 50 period. We cannot assume that would happen. And if there is no agreement, then we would end up having a referendum on whether to leave, after we had already left.

What I think would be particularly significant is this context is a another matter, which has hardly been discussed. That is the question of which groups would be selected to lead the official campaigns. And, with two questions (if allowed), there would be two campaigns.

You could, for instance, have people who wanted to remain in the EU but, if the majority wanted to leave, they would then vote for Mrs May's deal. You could have remainers who would vote against both but you could also have leavers with similar mixed motives – those who could be either for or against the deal.

As a result, there would have to be one campaign on whether to leave the EU, and another on whether to support the deal. Specifically, you could not expect those who wanted to leave necessarily to support the deal,

The official campaigns for the 2016 referendum have, of course, been disbanded. The "peoples' vote" group might be turned into a remainer campaign, but who would represent the leavers? Vote Leave has been disbanded and, in any case, is discredited. It could not take up the cudgels. "Leave means Leave" might qualify, but might not since it is largely a faction within the Conservative Party.

Without official campaign groups, though, could there be a free and fair referendum? Yet, how long would it take to get the groups up and running, and then for them to prepare their submissions?

All this though is entirely academic. If nothing else, Mrs May is known for her stubbornness. And her office's response to Jo Johnson's demands has been unequivocal. " Britain will not have a second referendum on its membership of the European Union under any circumstances", it says.

Nor can referendum supporters expect any succour from Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. He was interviewed yesterday by Der Spiegel, when he was asked: "If you could stop Brexit, would you?" The terse response was as unequivocal as you can get: "We can't stop it. The referendum took place. Article 50 has been triggered. What we can do is recognise the reasons why people voted Leave".

Basically, the idea of another referendum is dead in the water. Even if it could happen, the two leaders of the major parties aren't going to lift a finger to make it happen. The "Peoples' Vote" people are wasting their time and money.

In fact, though, this isn't anything to do with the "people". Asked in a poll to choose between options, only nine percent of respondents went for a new vote on UK membership. When asked a straight question on whether they want another referendum once the Brexit negotiations are over, 43 percent said yes, 35 percent no and 22 percent didn't know. There is no clear margin to support action.

That, therefore, puts us back where we've always been – waiting for Mrs May to come up with a proposal which will be acceptable to the EU. And here we’re still marching up and down those hills to the tune of the Grand Old Duke of York.

On the way up the hill, we heard from Leo Varadkar who considered that a deal was possible "within weeks", even if it did not amount to a "clean break". Talks, he said, would have to continue. The less said about the detail the better.

The main event, though, has been Mrs May caught out admitting in a leaked letter that there would have to be a "wet" border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, something she had always said would be completely unacceptable. Predictably, this has precipitated a showdown as DUP leader Arlene Foster accuses the prime minister of breaking her promises.

She has made it clear that the DUP could not support a deal which annexes Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. "We will have a different regulatory regime from the rest of the United Kingdom and essentially there is going to be a border down the Irish sea and no unionist would be able to support that", she said.

That now puts any vote on the deal in parliament at risk, which means that even if the prime minister could get something past the EU, it may not survive a mauling in Westminster.

But getting it past the EU has just got harder as Ambassadors for the EU27, including France and Germany, have told the Commission that they want of look at the text of any deal reached with the UK, before it can be made public and a special European Council is called.

That is reckoned to add another week to the process, making it even less likely that the Heads of State and Governments can get together by 25 November, this being the last date considered practical for the extra Council.

If it was at all possible, the plot gets thicker, with telling us that cabinet ministers have drawn up a secret no deal "Plan B" for adoption if Westminster votes down the May deal – if we ever get that far. Sky News also has the story (which The Sun claims as an "exclusive"), which amounts to the UK buying a two-year transition period off the EU for the princely sum of £18 billion.

This, however, has not been put to Brussels, and since there is no proposal to make up the rest of the dosh which was expected, there seems little prospect of it going ahead. One wonders whether the authors of this scheme have ever heard M. Barnier say that there could be no transition period without a withdrawal agreement, which in turn requires agreement on the backstop.

And even there, the dark clouds are gathering over No.10 as it is reported that the EU-27 are to reject Mrs May's idea for independent arbitration, to enable the "non-permanent" backstop to be ended non-unilaterally.

We are thus left with the same old, same old impasse with no one really knowing what on earth is going on, and nobody ably to tell whether a super-king-size rabbit is suddenly going to be extracted from a hat. If I was Mrs May, I'd definitely be planning to leave the country under an assumed name.

But then, perhaps that's what we're supposed to think. A far too candid senior EU source suggests that "divergent and possibly contradictory narratives" about a deal are probably deliberate. "If the British want to deceive their public about what it means, that's up to them", he says. "Maybe that's what it takes".

The things people will do to get ahead. Maybe it's a good idea to keep a few spare in case of emergencies.